Winter Sowing

During these cold, winter months, I have been reading a lot about winter sowing. Apparently, for people with green thumbs, rather than people who are all thumbs (like me), you can sow certain seeds during certain months to get earlier harvests. There are those who swear you don't need special grow lights or containers for winter sowing, though I have my doubts.

Early in February, I sowed a full tray of seeds to see what would happen. Each section of six cells was filled with a different type of seed: tomatillo, Prudens Purple tomato, corbaci pepper, jalapeno pepper, rainbow bell pepper, and banana pepper.

No grow lights, very limited natural light, and fairly cold conditions are par for the course in my house. Still, I though I could at least try. I started with a seed starting tray that I purchased at Walmart for $3. It allows me to water from beneath so that the delicate seedlings don't fall prey to fungus or mold or whatever it is that makes watering from above wrong. I placed said tree on the back of the stove, hoping that the daily use of the oven and front burners would heat the tray sufficiently to allow for germination. Germinate they did. As I said in my previous post, I had an almost 100 percent germination rate in this tray, even with old seeds that were not stored well, which is better than I have ever experienced in the past.

Unfortunately, the low light in the house has caused all of the seedlings to grow leggy. This is bad. Leggy seedlings turn into weak plants. As the first leaves (cotyledons) reach for light, the stem grows tall and thin. Once true leaves appear, the plant does not have a solid foundation to stay strong. I repotted the tomatilloes about a week ago to give them a fighting chance. I buried them in the soil right up to their first leaves. Here is what we have now:

Subject One:

Either the leaves are entirely malformed because of the cold or low light, or this wasn't a tomatillo seed. When cotyledons misshapen and placed far from each other, it usually means there wasn't enough light to create a sturdy plant. One true leaf is forming on this seedling, but the growth is slow and stunted. One other seedling has the same appearance as this one.

 Subject Two:

 I think the biggest issue here is that my thumb was somewhere it should not have been. Or maybe that's just the problem with the photograph. After repotting seedlings, it is not uncommon for them to stop growing for a time as they become accustomed to their new surroundings. These tomatilloes have reached out of their containers to grab as much light as possible, but they haven't grown larger in any other way.

Subject Three:

The tomatoes were quickly outgrowing their seedling container. Also, I needed that space to plant more tomato seeds. Thus, I moved each of them to their own pots. After I did this, I realized I have no place in my house for that many pots of this size. I am now propping the front door open and letting all of the individuals rest on an old cookie sheet. I'm fairly concerned about the cold air seeping in, considering we have recently gotten something like 20 inches of snow at a time when we would normally be preparing our garden beds for lettuce and peas.

I'm also pretty concerned about the legginess of the seedlings. As you can see from the second picture, the tomatoes are simply too tall. When I repotted them, I planted them all the way up to their cotyledons. Again, they will be shocked by the replanting, but hopefully will recover into beautiful, strong plants.

Subject Four:

As should be expected, the pepper plants are growing at a slower rate than the tomatoes, but they are growing well. They are fairly tall, unfortunately, but lots of time in the windowsill is keeping them from getting overly leggy. I'm doing my best to combat the cold of the window by replacing the tray every morning and evening with warm tap water. I also move the plants out of the windowsill at night and put them on the stove top with the newly planted seeds. Because I am such an early riser, I can add the plants to the windowsill before the sun comes up, ensuring that they receive the maximum amount of sunlight.

I have four sets of pepper trays that are similar in appearance to this one.

 Subject Five:
 

I love a garden experiment, therefore I have more experiments on the stove top at this very moment. I have never been successful at growing rosemary, but I have never put the effort into it that I should. I also have learned that I give up far sooner than I should. From what I understand, it takes about three months to properly grow rosemary. Even under the best conditions, rosemary seeds only have about a 50 percent germination rate. I have them in the large pot on the back of the stove, covered in plastic. Next to it is eggplants, placed in a plastic sandwich bag for germination. Next to this is a milk jug. It has been cleaned and drainage holes are in the bottom. This is what I'm using for zucchini seeds, just to see if this method works at all. The milk jug method is supposed to be for outside sowing, but seeing as how I have three jugs outside covered in snow, I thought I would try it inside to start. Not pictured is a supermarket berry container that is sown with tomato seeds.